R are to be placed at the top and not at the bottom. These two p

[Liestman]

Hrough. [49-*] It is exceedingly interesting to trace the course of
criticism since the appearance of Wilhelm von Humboldt's great work,
_Ueber die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues und ihren
Einfluss auf die geistige Entwickelung des Menschengeschlechts_ (Berlin,
1836). Dr. Brinton gave it most unqualified approval; (see especially
his monograph read before the American Philosophical Society in 1885,
and printed the same year). Prof. H. Steinthal (_Grammatik, Logik und
Psychologie_, 1855) calls the subject of "inner form" the most important
one in linguistic science, and von Humboldt's treatment of it his
greatest contribution to that science. And so on. But the work has
nevertheless received little attention from a large number of writers,
most of them declaring it "unclear." These two views, when one studies
the various writers, seem to follow closely upon the standpoints from
which each approaches the study. Those who study language (perhaps one
should here say, languages) as a phenomenon, a set of external forms, an
act, a thing done, get little use out of von Humboldt's work. Those who
see it as a human "activity," an energy, get much. This is quite
apparent in one of the clearest and ablest linguistic works which has
recently appeared, Dr. Adolf Noreen's _Vart Sprak_ (in 9 vols., still in
course of publication, Lund, 1903 and later), a work of far wider
linguistic value than appears from its title. Dr. Noreen, however,
dismisses von Humboldt's work, and the subject of "inner form," with a
few pages, and the results are apparent in several interesting points.
In the first place, in the course of an acute and critical anal
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: hauberk.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 12314 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://freedesktop.org/archives/dbus-commit/attachments/20100118/7559b860/attachment.jpg